Our Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system and the biggest living structure on the planet, representing about 10% of all the world’s coral reefs. It is one of the world’s seven natural wonders and a prized World Heritage Area.

Spanning 2,300km along the Queensland coast, and sprawling a massive 344,400 square kilometres, the Great Barrier Reef’s 3,000 coral reef systems, 600 tropical islands and about 300 coral cays, contain a huge diversity of marine plants and animals, such as sea turtles, reef fish, sharks, rays, hard and soft corals, and migrating whales. Home to such amazing biodiversity the Great Barrier Reef is vital to the health of Australia’s oceans — and our planet.

The Reef supports a $6 billion tourism industry, supports 69,000 jobs, recreational and commercial fishing, and represents a unique way of life for coastal communities along the Reef coast.

AMCS has a long, proud history of fighting for our Great Barrier Reef.

We played a critical role in establishing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and World Heritage Area. Together the community stopped coral mining and oil drilling on the Reef decades ago. We're still there every step of the way asking the Queensland and Australian Governments to make decisions in the best interest of the Reef and its communities, rather than deals with the mining companies and big developers.

Our Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger. Climate change, driven mainly by mining and burning coal, threatens its very existence. It’s not too late to save our Reef but time is critical.

In 2016 and again in 2017, a massive underwater heat wave caused half of all the Reef’s shallow water corals to bleach and die. The footprint of this unprecedented back-to-back bleaching stretches along two-thirds of the length of the Reef – from Torres Strait south to Townsville – a 1,500kms area nearly the distance between Sydney and Adelaide.